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Urhobo & Isoko Peoples

1000 – 1900
CultureAfrica

The Edoid-speaking farming peoples of the western Niger Delta, organised into some twenty-four Urhobo and nineteen Isoko clan polities - Ughelli, Agbon, Okpe, Uzere, Ozoro and the rest - each under an Ovie or a council of elders (the Okpako Orere gerontocracy), with no single Urhobo or Isoko state. The atlas draws their Itsekiri neighbours as warri_kingdom but leaves the dryland between the Ethiope and the Niger blank.

Not an ending: the Niger Coast Protectorate reached into the western delta in the 1890s and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria took it from 1900; the Urhobo-Itsekiri rivalry over Warri then played out under British administration. Urhobo and Isoko are the largest and among the largest peoples of Delta State today.

Borders in 1000 · drawn from 1 sourced border frame
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Further reading

Sources